High Poetry Summer

It's been a busy poetry month, starting with the IsamBards reading from their new anthology, 'Dancing on the Bridge' (Paralalia Press) at Silver Street Poetry on the final Friday of June. This particular gig was pretty hectic as Dominic Fisher and I are both Silver Street organisers and IsamBards, and in the absence of the other two organisers, I found myself MC-ing and guest-poetting, while Dom did everything else (and guest-poetted). I'm not very good at single-tasking, let alone multi-tasking, but we managed to get through it with no major slip-ups. 

The IsamBards: Dominic Fisher, Deborah Harvey, David Johnson and Pameli Benham

    

'Dancing on the Bridge'

    

A month later, after the exertions of the previous session, I was happy to take a back seat at July's Silver Street, restricting myself to an open mic reading of a startling and beautiful poem by US poet, Andrea Gibson, who died on the 14th July and is a huge loss to the worldwide poetry community.

Another well attended event was the launch of Peter Gruffydd's collection, 'Slipping Away', published by Red Guitar Press, at Coffee#1 in Bedminster. Here is Peter, flanked by Lizzie Parker, who read in support, and Bob Walton, who made it all happen, as is so often the case when it comes to poetry in Bristol. 

I also had two solo readings during July. The first was an online reading for the Gloucestershire Poetry Society's event, Crafty Crows, organised by Jason Conway, MC-ed by Emma Clowsley, and very enjoyable. Here's the banner they made to publicise it.

The biggest event, though, was my real life reading at Verbatim in Bishop's Castle, home of the fabulous Poetry Pharmacy. On the drive up, I broke my journey in Hereford, as I last visited the Cathedral in 1973, at the age of 11, on a primary school trip, and wanted to revisit the Mappa Mundi and Chained Library, both of which made a big impression all those years ago.

When I arrived there, I discovered that an event that was part of a choir festival was due to start, but I was assured by a steward that I could still explore the building, I just had to wait for the doors to open, so I queued alongside the concert-goers for forty minutes and slipped inside.

The first thing I saw was the Audley Chapel, where there are stunning windows by one of my favourite contemporary stained glass craftsmen, Thomas Denny, commemorating the 17th century poet, Thomas Traherne. But it was the last thing too, unfortunately, as I was told very firmly by another official, that I'd been misinformed and I absolutely couldn't look around - 'the concert's being recorded by the BBC!' - and as I didn't have enough time to wait for it to finish and then explore, I left the building. 

Maybe I'll go back another time. (Best not leave it another 52 years, though.)

Ghost sign on Widemarsh Street

Then it was on up to Bishop's Castle on the Shropshire/Wales border, where the Poetry Pharmacy is situated near the top of the very steep high street. 

I was chuffed to see a Verbatim poster in the Pharmacy cafe ... 

... as well as a couple of antique road signs, which instantly hotwired the past. And elephants! There are elephants in Bishop's Castle because during WW2 several circuses moved their animals out of the cities to Bishop's Castle to avoid the air raids. I really like that this little piece of history is remembered in the town through a trail of artwork. 

Verbatim was taking place in a building at the very top of the road called The Lab, where the Poetry Pharmacy's famous poetry pills were assembled before they became wildly popular and production had to be moved to an industrial unit. It's a wonderful, accessible venue, the walls of which are hung with portraits from Clae Eastgate's marvellous series 'Painting the Poets'. 

I have to say, it was an exceptionally warm and welcoming evening, superbly MC-ed by Pat Edwards, with open mic poems of a really high standard.

Cherry Doyle

Tina Cole

I'd been a bit wobbly in the run-up to this reading. I knew it was likely to be the last time I read a chunk of poems from 'Love the Albatross' and while I'm fine with this - they do take an emotional toll on me - I also have to face the fact that nothing has changed with regard to my personal experience of estrangement during the five years it has taken to write these poems and get them out into the world, and that's a hard and painful realisation. 

What really helped me keep a lid on it all at Verbatim is that two of my peers from my MA course in Creative Writing a few years ago had travelled considerable distances to be there - Cherry Doyle and Tina Cole. It was great to see them again and hear their poems. Also, no less than four people came up to me during the course of the evening to tell me about their own experience of estrangement, with a couple of other attendees getting in touch the following day. What's so emotionally gratifying about this is that this sort of outreach is why I wrote the poems in the first place: to make connections with other people, from both sides of the divide, and to let them know they're not wrestling the loss, stigma and shame on their own. I was glad to have palpable evidence that 'Love the Albatross' is now touching others.

Thanks to Marius Grose, Dom Fisher, Pat Edwards and Cherry Doyle for photos used in this blog.